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| Dick Smith, who has died aged 92, was not the sort of makeup artist to be found alongside personal chefs and chakra consultants in the entourages of narcissistic Hollywood stars. His job was not to prettify, but to warp and curdle. He rendered the youthful decaying and the robust decrepit. | Dick Smith, who has died aged 92, was not the sort of makeup artist to be found alongside personal chefs and chakra consultants in the entourages of narcissistic Hollywood stars. His job was not to prettify, but to warp and curdle. He rendered the youthful decaying and the robust decrepit. |
| In Little Big Man (1970), he pioneered and applied the prosthetics that persuaded audiences that Dustin Hoffman, then 32, was in fact 121 years old. He turned Marlon Brando into a sullen, crumbling Mafia titan with bloodhound jowls in The Godfather (1972). After undergoing Smith's makeup regime, Linda Blair was no longer a cherubic 13-year-old with chipmunk cheeks, but a rancid, puking, livid-eyed vessel of demonic possession in The Exorcist (1973). Aside from an honorary Academy Award presented in 2011, his only Oscar (shared with Paul LeBlanc) was for another of his characteristic miracles of accelerated ageing, performed this time on the actor F Murray Abraham in Amadeus (1984). "Dick Smith is the best makeup man in the world," said the actor, who also won an Oscar for his work on that film. | In Little Big Man (1970), he pioneered and applied the prosthetics that persuaded audiences that Dustin Hoffman, then 32, was in fact 121 years old. He turned Marlon Brando into a sullen, crumbling Mafia titan with bloodhound jowls in The Godfather (1972). After undergoing Smith's makeup regime, Linda Blair was no longer a cherubic 13-year-old with chipmunk cheeks, but a rancid, puking, livid-eyed vessel of demonic possession in The Exorcist (1973). Aside from an honorary Academy Award presented in 2011, his only Oscar (shared with Paul LeBlanc) was for another of his characteristic miracles of accelerated ageing, performed this time on the actor F Murray Abraham in Amadeus (1984). "Dick Smith is the best makeup man in the world," said the actor, who also won an Oscar for his work on that film. |
| Smith was renowned throughout the industry as a pioneer and a genius. Susan Cabral-Ebert, president of the Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild, said: "To every special effects makeup artist he was their mentor, an iconic person they most looked up to. He was so generous in spirit that he would share every secret he knew with every makeup artist." Rick Baker, his assistant on The Exorcist and later a highly successful makeup artist in his own right, put it simply: "He was the master." | Smith was renowned throughout the industry as a pioneer and a genius. Susan Cabral-Ebert, president of the Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild, said: "To every special effects makeup artist he was their mentor, an iconic person they most looked up to. He was so generous in spirit that he would share every secret he knew with every makeup artist." Rick Baker, his assistant on The Exorcist and later a highly successful makeup artist in his own right, put it simply: "He was the master." |
| He was born in Larchmont, New York. His father, Richard, a publishing executive, and his mother Coral (nee Smith) divorced when he was 12. Smith's aspirations at school were stunted by his perceived lack of skill. "I used to envy kids who could draw cartoons," he said. "I didn't have the artistic talent for that, but I had very good structural visualisation, so I could see 3D images in my head." | He was born in Larchmont, New York. His father, Richard, a publishing executive, and his mother Coral (nee Smith) divorced when he was 12. Smith's aspirations at school were stunted by his perceived lack of skill. "I used to envy kids who could draw cartoons," he said. "I didn't have the artistic talent for that, but I had very good structural visualisation, so I could see 3D images in my head." |
| At Yale, he undertook maths and premedical studies, and intended to go into dentistry. But he was waylaid by a book he discovered there: Paint, Powder and Makeup. Inspired to conduct on himself some of the monster makeup experiments detailed within its pages, Smith was tempted off the straight-and-narrow of dentistry and towards the contorted mouths, protuberant fangs and pain-wracked faces of cinema's grotesques. He had the ability, though, to find the human in the horrific; his designs, though comprehensive, allowed space for the actor to shine through. This was due to his chief innovation – the use of sections of prosthetic makeup applied separately, rather than the more unwieldy and restrictive one-piece mask favoured by his predecessors. His subjects may have been in many cases unrecognisable after a few hours in his chair, but it would be wrong to say that they vanished. Rather, they were enhanced. "Even when the characters were fantastically weird, I always tried to make them believable," Smith said in 2007. "Actors have to feel like they are the person they are portraying." | At Yale, he undertook maths and premedical studies, and intended to go into dentistry. But he was waylaid by a book he discovered there: Paint, Powder and Makeup. Inspired to conduct on himself some of the monster makeup experiments detailed within its pages, Smith was tempted off the straight-and-narrow of dentistry and towards the contorted mouths, protuberant fangs and pain-wracked faces of cinema's grotesques. He had the ability, though, to find the human in the horrific; his designs, though comprehensive, allowed space for the actor to shine through. This was due to his chief innovation – the use of sections of prosthetic makeup applied separately, rather than the more unwieldy and restrictive one-piece mask favoured by his predecessors. His subjects may have been in many cases unrecognisable after a few hours in his chair, but it would be wrong to say that they vanished. Rather, they were enhanced. "Even when the characters were fantastically weird, I always tried to make them believable," Smith said in 2007. "Actors have to feel like they are the person they are portraying." |
| After graduating in 1943, he served in the army for the final years of the second world war, then joined NBC in 1945 as a makeup director. He was responsible for the increasing use of foam latex in television makeup; another advancement for which he can take credit was the development of makeup shades for the first colour TV broadcasts. He worked exclusively in television until the mid-1960s. Highlights included passing off Laurence Olivier as a leprosy sufferer in The Moon and Sixpence (1959). "Dick, it does the acting for me," marvelled Olivier when he clapped eyes on his makeup job. | After graduating in 1943, he served in the army for the final years of the second world war, then joined NBC in 1945 as a makeup director. He was responsible for the increasing use of foam latex in television makeup; another advancement for which he can take credit was the development of makeup shades for the first colour TV broadcasts. He worked exclusively in television until the mid-1960s. Highlights included passing off Laurence Olivier as a leprosy sufferer in The Moon and Sixpence (1959). "Dick, it does the acting for me," marvelled Olivier when he clapped eyes on his makeup job. |
| Smith received an Emmy for his work on the TV film Mark Twain Tonight! (1967), in which Hal Holbrook played the writer in his dotage. Cinema was not slow to utilise his expertise. His first film job was Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962), aka Blood Money, starring Anthony Quinn as a washed-up boxer. For this he employed a "dental plumper", similar to the device he would later use on Brando in The Godfather, to give the impression of an engorged mouth. He worked with Quinn again on Marco the Magnificent (1965), in which he widened the wings of the actor's nostrils, saddled him with a plastic bald cap and added inner eyelids to assist him in his portrayal of Kublai Khan. He had already worked on the corroded appearance of Dustin Hoffman as Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy (1969), but it was his work with the same actor on Little Big Man that became a landmark in film makeup. "I did extensive research and spent six weeks sculpting the overlapping appliances for the head and hands," Smith said. "There were many other makeup problems, and filming on location with temperatures from over 100 to 30 below zero was rough." | |
| Films increasingly dominated his career after this. There was diverse ageing work – from Walter Matthau's receding hairline in The Sunshine Boys (1975) to David Bowie gaining hundreds of years in a matter of seconds in The Hunger (1983) and Jack Lemmon drifting into his 80s in Dad (1992). He also created Robert De Niro's iconic mohawk in Taxi Driver (1976). Turning William Hurt into a writhing, amorphous blob in Altered States (1980) was a special challenge. This required the first full-body foam latex suits used since Creature from the Black Lagoon in 1954. "We had to figure out how to make and inject gallons of foam in huge three-piece moulds," explained Smith on the website, dicksmithmake-up.com, which spun off from his textbooks Do-It-Yourself Monster Make-up Handbook and his Advanced Professional Makeup Course. | Films increasingly dominated his career after this. There was diverse ageing work – from Walter Matthau's receding hairline in The Sunshine Boys (1975) to David Bowie gaining hundreds of years in a matter of seconds in The Hunger (1983) and Jack Lemmon drifting into his 80s in Dad (1992). He also created Robert De Niro's iconic mohawk in Taxi Driver (1976). Turning William Hurt into a writhing, amorphous blob in Altered States (1980) was a special challenge. This required the first full-body foam latex suits used since Creature from the Black Lagoon in 1954. "We had to figure out how to make and inject gallons of foam in huge three-piece moulds," explained Smith on the website, dicksmithmake-up.com, which spun off from his textbooks Do-It-Yourself Monster Make-up Handbook and his Advanced Professional Makeup Course. |
| His work became sporadic in the 1990s, with a handful of credits including the ghoulish and outlandish comedy Death Becomes Her (1992) and the horror film House on Haunted Hill (1999). | His work became sporadic in the 1990s, with a handful of credits including the ghoulish and outlandish comedy Death Becomes Her (1992) and the horror film House on Haunted Hill (1999). |
| His wife, Jocelyn De Rosa Smith, died in 2003. He is survived by his two sons, David and Douglas. | His wife, Jocelyn De Rosa Smith, died in 2003. He is survived by his two sons, David and Douglas. |
| • Richard Emerson Smith, makeup artist, born 26 June 1922; died 30 July 2014 | • Richard Emerson Smith, makeup artist, born 26 June 1922; died 30 July 2014 |